Controversial Indian blogger Mohammad Zubair wins brief respite from police action

Judges say authorities may have no basis for investigating old tweets as separate offences

Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair, wearing a white cap, is escorted by police outside the Patiala House Court in New Delhi on July 2. AFP

India’s Supreme Court will hear a petition on Wednesday, two days after it described the detention of journalist Mohammad Zubair by police as a “vicious cycle”.

Police in northern Uttar Pradesh state will be barred from taking action against Zubair’s old tweets that were allegedly “hurting religious sentiments”.

Zubair, co-founder of fact-checking website Alt News, was arrested by Delhi police over a 2018 tweet, purportedly a screenshot of a scene from 1983 Bollywood classic Kissi Se Na Kehna, in June.

But that followed a string of criminal cases in Uttar Pradesh, the state led by Hindu monk-turned-politician Yogi Adityanath.

On Monday, the senior court, while hearing an urgent plea against the police complaints, barred the state police from taking any action against him in connection to five criminal cases until July 20.

Zubair has already received bail in a sixth case in the state.

Expressing concern over the “vicious cycle” of arrests, the bench of Justice DY Chandrachud and AS Bopanna granted him bail for two days.

"Contents of all FIRs seem to be similar,” Justice Chandrachud said during the hearing, referring to the initial police inquiry.

“What seems to be happening is, as he gets bail in one case, he is remanded in another. This vicious cycle is continuing.”

Zubair is facing separate cases in the districts of Sitapur, Lakhimpur Kheri, Muzaffarnagar and Ghaziabad and two in Hathras for satirical comments about television news anchors, allegedly hurting religious sentiment of the Hindu community and posting alleged inflammatory content about deities.

Zubair was first arrested on the basis of a complaint from an anonymous Twitter user for hurting religious sentiment after tweeting an image that showed a hotel named "Hanuman Hotel”— a common practice in India for many to name their businesses after the Hindu monkey god.

The hotel was previously called “Honeymoon Hotel" – with several letters in Hindi painted to make the change.

The image accompanied Zubair’s comments: "Before 2014: Honeymoon Hotel, After 2014: Hanuman Hotel", a reference to the rise in Hindu fanaticism since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014.

Zubair's arrest came weeks after he flagged a TV debate video clip that contained derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed made by Nupur Sharma, a BJP spokeswoman. The incident drew widespread attention and sparked a diplomatic row.

Ms Sharma, who is also facing several police cases over charges of hurting religious sentiment, has accused Zubair of endangering her life following his tweet.

Many of her supporters demanded Zubair's arrest before police in Delhi filed a complaint on its own over his 2018 tweet.

Ms Sharma has also approached the Supreme Court, reporting nine cases in several states and the capital Delhi, referring to “death and rape threats”.

The court had on July 1 rejected her petition and asked her to “apologise to the nation” for setting the “country on fire'' with her “loose tongue”.